


Calvin Creates the World

by BardicRaven



Category: Calvin & Hobbes, Calvin & Hobbes - Gritty Reboots
Genre: F/M, Gen, Growing Up, Imaginary Friends, Imagination, Imagination running rampant, Magic, Stuffed Toys, Tigers, Unmaking the world, friends - Freeform, girls, girls aren't icky any more, that aren't so imaginary, trying to impress the girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:37:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5514233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calvin is growing up. He doesn't like his imagination any more. His imagination doesn't like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calvin Creates the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jedi_penguin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedi_penguin/gifts), [oxymora (oxymoron)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoron/gifts).



> ##### I hope you two don't mind sharing this fic - I saw both Prompts and how much this story could fulfill both wishes so very nicely-nicely, and couldn't choose.
> 
> ##### Saw no reason to.
> 
> ##### So here you both are and I hope you like!
> 
> ##### Thank you for the chance to play in an entirely new canon!
> 
> ##### Happy Yuletidings! :-) 
> 
> ##### Yule-Goat-to-be-Named-Later

O>>>\----------->

I've always had a vivid imagination. It's what saved me from long dreary days at school, kids that didn't understand me, and parents that, while now I can admit that they were doing the best they could, at the time I could only see the cages they were trying to put around my freedom.

My best friend, Hobbes, is a perfect example of that. To the rest of the world, he was just a stuffed tigerr, but to me, he was a real person. He talked to me inside my head, instead of outside into my ears like the rest of the world, but that didn't make him any less real in my book.

And the fact that the rest of the world saw nothing more than fake furr and seams only reaffirmed my belief that they didn't know anything about the really important stuff.

And so my childhood went on, a mess of vibrant dream world and dreary reality, until I hit puberty and started unmaking the world.

O>>\----------->

It started out as little stuff, things that nobody much noticed, including me. Things from my dreams, my nightmares, would pop up in my daily life… or disappear.

Little things. Real 'tiger ate my homework' stuff, except apparently, in this case, it was real. Not that either my parents or my teachers believed me, but it was the truth.

They just said that I had a vivid imagination and to quit making stuff up. And then they'd assign me a ton of work to make up for the disappearance.

After the first time, I stopped trying to convince them and just said I lost it or I never did it. It was easier to lie than to try to tell them the truth.

And certainly a lot easier on me. This way they'd only assign some more work to make up for what I didn't do - they didn't tack on extra for what they perceived as the lie.

It wasn't the truth, but it got me by. And while it was enough for me, my imagination grew more and more angry, rumbling in an unseen distance, coming ever closer, like a thunderstorm on the horizon.

O>>>\----------->

The compromises grew larger and larger the older I grew. I told myself that my creations were childish things, and I should put them away now that I was becoming a man. All the things you're told by your parents, by society.

All the things you're told as truth.

All things that are really lies.

O>>>\----------->

I didn't recognize it for what it was. I make no apologies – how could I have known? My parents, my teachers, all thought it was just my imagination. They didn't know that the things I created really did become real.

So they had no idea of what to do when things stopped being real and started falling apart.

I caught their fear. Tried to hide the growing manifestations of my imagination's rebellion, which only made them worse.

Hobbes helped, as best he could, but even he only knew so much.

And I was only willing to listen so far.

He tried to warn me. He told me that the solution was not to turn away from my imagination, but to embrace it. But I didn't want to hear that. I wanted my life to be simple. Like any other teen, I wanted to fit in, not stand out.

And my imagination was keeping me from doing that.

So my imagination had to go.

And with it, my world.

O>>>\----------->

That was the final straw of course, the one that set my imagination free to completely trash my world. Threatened with its very existence, my imagination fought back, for its very survival.

And to hell with mine.

First, it started playing with my world - changing things in and out. Adding things here, taking them away there. Just enough to make me wonder if I were losing my mind.

Just enough to make my parents and teachers certain of it. They sent me to a shrink. In response to his questions, I attempted honesty, then gave up and told him what he wanted to hear.

That saved my freedom, but not my world.

Angry, my imagination struck back. _Deny me!_ it seemed to say. You'd think I'd've learned, but no. I kept on denying and the chaos got worse and worse.

Until one day, it stole Hobbes from me.

He'd been steadfastly by my side, doing his best to warn me about what was happening, trying to convince me that I needed to let my imagination stay, that the good it brought far outweighed the bad, no matter what the rest of the world said.

Why my imagination stole Hobbes, I don't know. I mean, Hobbes was on its side.

But I guess it's like the plague-germ that kills its host and thereby kills itself. It just didn't know any better. Or maybe it feared that Hobbes would change his mind.

I don't know. All I knew was that Hobbes was gone.

Maybe it was angry that Hobbes hadn't convinced me to keep my imagination running free, and, like the crow guard who is killed for incompetence, maybe it went after Hobbes for the same reason.

I didn't know. All I knew was that my friend was gone, sucked into the nothingness that was my imagination's anger, and I had no idea of how to get him back.

Or if I even could.

I began to study, harder than I ever had before. Study everything that might help me to get Hobbes back. I didn't care about anything else - I only wanted my tiger back.

I was desperate. I'd do anything.

Even… believe?

O>>>\----------->

If my imagination was angry with me, then all I had to do was allow it to run free again, and all would be well. At least in theory. A lot of the books I was reading talked about how you create your own Universe, and how it starts with you. So, maybe that was the key here. Worth a try anyway.

Okay, I could handle that. Especially if it meant having a chance to get Hobbes back. With him gone, none of the rest of it felt like it was worth anything – the job, the money, the career, the house, the car, the wife and 2.5 kids and half-a-dog. Even Susie3, who, somewhere over the years had turned from nemesis to babe in my book.

I'd done this for her, partly. Mostly for my parents, but also for her. I wanted to impress her, and since she'd never seemed that thrilled with my imagination and its creations before, I thought the best way to impress her was to make them go away. It never occurred to me that part of why she'd hated them was because I was usually torturing her in my dreams – Spaceman Spiff throwing her to the monsters, that sort of thing. Yeah, well, I was a kid – what do you expect? Girls are icky at that age.

But then somehow they change and now we're both interested in each other, but with my world falling apart, how could I expect her to like me?

So, for Hobbes's sake, and for any chance at winning Susie's affections, I needed to fix this and stat.

With that much at stake, a little thing like belief should be child's play. Shouldn't it?

No time like the present to try. And at the rate my imagination was unmaking the world, if I didn't hurry up and do something soon, I wouldn't have a world left to worry about.

And where would that leave me? I didn't care to think about it.

I began to work on the solution, the one that, somehow, would let everything work out.

So, if this stuff was real, it meant that all I had to do was wish Hobbes back and he'd be here. Right?

No, not wish. Believe. Believe with everything I had. Believe to the point there was no room left for anything else.

Harder than it seems. But this was Hobbes we were talking about. My best friend. My buddy. My pal. My guide through this whole wyrd Journey called Life.

I could do this. I would do this. I started by apologizing to my imagination. How I shouldn't have tried to send it away. How I should have worked with it to please my parents, not forced the choice.

And as I went on, I felt the world around me grow just that little bit solider with every word.

I believed. Gradually letting nothing else be true but that my friend was back beside me. It all started with him. If he came back, I knew everything else would work out just fine.

And suddenly, a small furry tiger popped into existence beside me.

“What? You couldn't go for the real thing while you were at it?” A growly voice inside my head I'd never expected to hear again.

“Gratitude is a virtue.” I said primly.

“Gratitude doesn't feed the hungry tiger,” Hobbes grumbled. “Where's the tuna?”

“Oh, coming right up, you fuzzball.” Yes, I was totally dommed by my tiger, but I didn't care. I was just so glad he was back.

At least for now.

O>>>\----------->


End file.
